Archive of Our Own ^beta

Today marked the anniversary that the Initiative left for Andromeda. Past celebrations had been met with little fanfare, but this year, with spirits high thanks, in no small part, to the tireless efforts of Alex Ryder, everyone was in a joyous mood.

Meridian had been a year in development, and still not perfect, but coming together. At the urging of Governor Nozomi Dunn, banners and decorations had been put up. Artists from all over Heleus gathered in what was becoming the provincial square and the air filled with delightful music.

It was the sort of thing that cameras loved, and Keri T’Vessa did her best to capture it all. Despite her best efforts to remain neutrally professional, Keri couldn’t help but smile at all the merriment. The dress helped. It was a long time since she’d worn one or felt anything approaching sun on her bare shoulders and stomach.

Making her way through the crowd, Keri came along Alex Ryder dressed in a smart, summery white suit with yellow shirt, holding a cocktail in her hands and talking to Vederia Damali and Cora Harper.

Keri couldn’t tell what she was talking about but turned up the camera slightly to review the audio later. Feeling queasiness in her stomach at the evil attempt at eavesdropping, Keri switched off her camera and touched Alex’s hand.

“Hey,” Alex greeted and kissed Keri’s lips.

“Enjoying yourself, Keri?” Cora asked.

“It’s refreshing to see smiles on everyone’s faces,” Keri replied. She took the glass out of Alex’s hand and sipped. Sugary and tasted a lot like a valiant attempt at a margarita. Close enough, she mused, and sipped again.

“Indeed,” Vederia replied. The three Pathfinders smiled at each other.

“We were just talking about next year and how we might have even more of a reason to celebrate,” Alex said and laced her fingers in between Keri’s.

Keri couldn’t help her curiosity and her face gave her away instantly as it always did.

“We think we may have found signs of a lost Angaran colony somewhere just outside the cluster,” Vederia said.

“Think you may have,” Alex said, turning her attention to Vederia.

Vederia folded her arms. “Yes?” Her tone was sarcastic. “You know how things are in this cluster. It’s impossible to know more without us actually going there. I’ve already pitched it to Addison. Naturally, she hasn’t signed off on it; says it’s too risky for a Pathfinder team.”

“It is risky. The Archon was just one guy we ran into. There are more Kett out there and if you don’t come back...it’s more than just losing one Commando and her ship. Remember what else you have.” Alex was implying SAM and Vederia caught on. “Why not send a few probes and let the science team analyze some more data?”

Vederia sighed in exasperation. “Honestly, Alex?”

Admittedly, Keri was also surprised at Alex’s caution. Not too long ago, Alex Ryder would have been the first one to jump at something like this. Was it her encounter with the Archon that changed things? Was it Keri? Not that Keri objected. If this was the person Alex was to become, then so be it. Though...part of her began to realize that the woman she held hands with was far from the person who she first interviewed.

“There’s more than just you now. If we pair up, we might stand more of a chance and we can cover twice as much ground.” The way Vederia looked at Alex, it made Alex nervous. She intended for Alex to accompany her.

Keri tightened her grip on Alex’s hands as a signal she wanted to talk when this was over. She felt silly for objecting to the idea of Alex going on one more mission. The decision to retire from her space duties had been her own. Keri had become spoiled by her presence; no more worrying whenever Alex would depart on a mission, or late night messages that something terrible had happened.

Alex laughed nervously. “I appreciate the though, but you know I can’t. What about Cora? We’ve been ignoring her.”

Cora chuckled. “I’m busy with Eos, remember?”

“Please, Alex, these people need us. If they are out there, we could be their salvation,” Vederia pleaded.

“You remember me putting Eos on hold to chase salvation.” There was an edge to Alex’s kindness that neither seemed to want to argue with. “Besides, I haven’t put a suit on in months, and well...” Alex pinched the flab at her waist and tugged with a laugh.

Cora looked uncomfortable.

“Look, I’ll talk to Foster and see if I can smooth her over. She owes me a few favors anyway. I still think it’s dangerous.”

“Noted, mom,” Vederia said flatly. “I’d appreciate any help you can offer.” She was disappointed and she looked defeated.

Keri skewed her lips and tugged at Alex’s arm. “Can I speak with you a moment?” She asked.

- - - - -

Outside the gates of Hyperion was a lush wilderness. Roads had been carved out to make way for transports as settlers put down roots in various parts of Meridian. With approval, lest the paradise that they had stumbled upon be ruined by the greed and selfishness of those who refused to leave those ideals behind.

Alex and Keri had been two such people approved to establish themselves away from Hyperion, choosing to make a home on the shores of a lake about 10 kilometers from where they were. It was on that road that Keri stood and under the shade of a leafy tree.

“I’m sorry for that back there,” Alex apologized.

Keri’s brow knit in confusion.

“I shouldn’t argue like that in front of you.”

Keri laughed. “I’ve seen worse remember?”

Alex made a face, conceding the point and finished the last of her drink. She looked handsome, but exhaustion that looked a lot like torment lined her face.

Keri couldn’t help but touch her hand to it. “Hey...” she let her voice trail off. More of what she’d seen before became apparent; the woman that Alex Ryder had become. It wasn’t the person she was. Seeing her like this frightened Keri and the more she reminisced, the more she realized how blind she’d been to her transformation. “I want you to go,” she said.

Alex’s shapely dark eyebrows lifted and she took Keri’s hand from her face. “What?”

Keri kissed Alex’s fingers and then pulled her into a loving kiss that she let linger. Warmth rose just as it always did when she kissed Alex and she left a small smile on the former human Pathfinder’s thin lips and Alex’s charcoal eyes glittered with love. She loved it when she looked at her this way.

“I mean it,” Keri said into Alex’s face. “When you were talking, it dawned on me--”

“--Keri...” Alex’s voice trailed off and she looked as though she might cry. She leaned against the tree they were under and ran a hand across her short, black hair. “I, honestly, don’t know what people expect from me. I nearly died out there, and coming back here and to you made me realize how childish I’d been. It’s not a game out there, and what they want to do, go outside the cluster, into Lion’s den, so to speak, on a whim. They’re young, they have no responsibilities.”

“Alex, if I’m causing a problem, I need to know,” Keri said. It was as though her voice as outside herself and her heart pounded with dread as the words continued to tumble out. “I admit to being scared when you were out there all the time, but I also know that being in the muck of things, leaping off cliffs, dodging bullets, and being up to your elbows in some alien goo is when you were happiest.”

Alex made a face and pulled Keri close. “I’m happiest with you.”

“Alex, I’m just a person. You can’t pin your entire enjoyment of life on one person. It isn’t fair. Not to you, and not to me. The last thing I want is for our marriage to be filled with resentment.”

Alex was quiet a moment and had that look about her she got when she knew she’d been defeated.

Keri kissed her lips again. “My goal is to keep you. That isn’t going to happen very well if you’re sitting around here collecting cobwebs. I know that’s not who you are.”

“I’m driving you crazy aren’t I?”

Keri couldn’t help a laugh. “No. I love having you around, but I want to love the person you are meant to be and not the one that you think I want you to be.”

That seemed to strike a nerve and Alex bent down and kissed Keri again. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” She asked and kissed her again.

Keri opened her mouth and caressed her love, losing herself to the way Alex’s hands felt, the way she smelled, the way she loved.

“You answered my interview questions,” Keri joked breathlessly after a long minute.

Alex laughed wetly and Keri felt Alex’s lips on her forehead. She loved it when Alex did that. “I meant to tell you how good you look today.” Her smile was as lecherous as it was appreciative and she brushed her hand across the fabric and Keri’s freckled shoulders.

“Thank you,” Keri replied with a coy smile in return and a blush. “Though, I think I could wear a potato sack and you’d say that.”

Alex laughed softly and leaned her head against Keri’s forehead. Her fingers tickled the exposed skin of her abdomen. Ordinarily, Keri would giggle but she felt like something more. The two of them were out here alone and as much as she loved doing this with Alex, feeling her pressed against her like this, it felt like not enough.

Keri bit her lip and reached to the fasteners of her dress and pulled them apart and pushed the dress and the slip underneath off her body.

“Keri?” Alex’s face turned bright red.

- - - - - -

Alex’s heart beat loudly in her chest and she gasped as Keri pulled her into a kiss. Hands fumbled with her shirt as it became untucked and Keri’s warm hands touched the bare skin underneath and slipped underneath her bra to cup her breasts causing her to let out an uncontrolled moan.

Here? Now? The idea was too delicious to keep restrained as was the electric touch that Keri’s fingers left behind. Alex saturated her underwear and she pulled off her suit jacket and her shirt as well as Keri’s underclothes.

Alex buried her lips in Keri’s neck, taking fuel from the sighs her wife let into the summery air. She gently lowered Keri onto her back on the grass and kissed down her neck, her chest, and rolled a violet nipple between her tongue.

- - - - -

Keri tilted her head back, murmuring Alex’s name, her fingers threading through Alex’s hair as she pressed herself into her wife.

It had been a long time since the two of them had done anything like this: Behind the concealment of the forest but with people expecting the two of them not far away, music and laughter still loud enough to remind them of the importance of haste.

Or was it that important? Alex lifted a mischievous grin to Keri who glanced at her and easily caught what she was trying to convey.

Keri let out a saccharine moan as Alex slowed her pace, taking her time on appreciating the woman she loved, kissing lower and across the constellations of blue and purple freckles on her abdomen and between her thighs. She sputtering through a convulsion that threatened what little composure she had left. Her body ached for more, but at the same time she wanted to reserve her eagerness for a more appropriate setting. Like in at home in he bed that Alex had made them.

Yet this felt so good and Keri felt so complete with Alex returned to the self she loved, the woman she was meant to be.

“Keri...” Alex breathed and stared up at her, her face a mess and glistening in the way that made Keri roll her hips wanting more of her. But not like this.

Touch meant something else for asari, something that she was yet to share with Alex. Regret lingered as it combined with her earlier words. She’d scolded Alex for not being her true self while, at the same time, she’d been holding back from her.

That wasn’t the way love worked either. It wasn’t the person she wanted to be.

“Come here,” Keri whispered and gestured to her.

Alex obliged with a heady blink and slid up Keri’s body and stared into her cool blue eyes. Ever since meeting her, Keri’s love had been nothing but unconditional. She was an explorer just like Alex, except the frontiers she chose to explore were less stars and nebulae, but interaction. She was a romantic in a way that Alex still didn’t comprehend, but she appreciated in the depths of her soul.

“I love you,” Alex breathed.

Keri brushed a hand across Alex’s hair. Her smile was raw, as though she had peeled away everything and the woman who stared back at her was actually her. She also seemed to be asking a question of acceptance.

- - - - - -

Alex’s heart raced with nervousness and she kissed Keri’s lips to reassure her. Except reassurance wasn’t the question she was asking it was something more, something serious. “Are you sure?” Alex asked.

Keri nodded. “Are you?” She breathed.

Alex’s heart beat louder and she was sure Keri could feel it against her naked chest. She nodded and watched clouds of dark energy swirl around the sapphire in her eyes and wrap around the two of them. Soft and protective and left Alex weightless.

Meridian fell away and Alex found herself staring back at Keri, warm sun on their naked skin, waves lapping at a white shoreline alien and yet so familiar to her. Keri looked radiant and smiled at her, flecks of sand dotting her bare shoulders and breasts.

She sang a song in a tongue Alex didn’t know. It was beautiful and serene and seemed to come from all around. Keri was close and kissed her deeply, seeming to melt into her touch, bodies and minds undulating like the smoky wisps of biotic energy.

Alex let herself go, surrendering herself completely to Keri and felt halved with a joy she never wanted to leave.

Coming to, Alex found herself still lying on top of Keri, but unable to move. Part of her was disappointed to be back on Meridian, but also happy that it was with Keri.

A breeze brushed against her bare backside, reminding her of her mortality and soon the music from the celebration returned as well as voices that SAM distantly identified as Cora Harper and Moshae Sjefa. They were looking for them.

“We should get up,” Keri said. Her voice was a thin breath and she looked flustered a moment as if she were struggling to gather her senses.

Still high from whatever had just happened Alex kissed Keri’s chest. “Not yet.”

Keri melted into a smile and rolled her over. “They will find us, love. How they do is something we can control.” Despite her protest, she didn’t move, nor did she look like she wanted to. Vulnerability still lurked under the surface, but it no longer looked like fear. Instead, it looked like the kind of vulnerability of being close for the first time. Of confronting her future.

What a happy future it was. Alex reassured Keri with gentle circles of her thumb across the bare skin of her back. She let herself be swallowed into Keri’s gaze and brushed her thoughts across her love’s like a gentle caress.

Keri relaxed and she seemed to let go. “This will make quite a story.”

“Futures always do.”